The forum has spent all kinds of time debating whether Operation Iraqi Freedom was the right thing to do, but we have never really looked back at the operation itself. I am going to throw this question out...

What things could have been done better in Iraq?


I will delete any off topic posts. Things like "the war was wrong" or "where are the WMD's?" are not to be discussed in this topic.

It needed international approval from the start to make it better, i believe in afghanistan having a multi-national force has made it better as the afganistan people dont believe the invasion was just a US invasion it was a UN backed world invasion.
http://www.estripes.com/article.asp?...6&archive=true

We needed to stop the insurgents entering the country (how i dont know)

A more softly-softly approach was needed, the american approach was a lot harsher then the british, and won no friends.

Those are just some of my views.

Haliburton makes it look to corporate. Conflict of interest with Cheney. Let Elf{french oil} have the contracts. The French are key diplomats here it`s not too late. Bush needs to talk more often and from his heart. We need wartime sacrifice in the homeland, energy habits maybe.

I think that USA underestimated the enemy and the Iraq people alot. It seems that they thought that the people would give USA standing ovasions (?) when they came in to Iraq. The basic problem in Iraq now is that some (most ?) of the people doesn't want to have them in Iraq.

If they should have had a more humble approach, like the british, it might been different now. USA should have learned more about the people and taught the soldiers more about how to behave towards the civilians. They must get the civilians over on their side, make them trust the Americans.

Of course it would have been better if the war was sanctioned by the UN and more countries took part in the war.

To fix the situation they got now I think they need more troops, more countries must take part in the war.

Thats all I come up with now. I'll be back

Be better by sending Arab troops into Iraq.

Something like 500,000 Arab troops.

They all could have put more thought into the possibility of insurgents coming in and trying to take over. They were more thinking down the lines of a massive humanitarian crisis with poverty and starvation running rampant than a military crisis.

Originally Posted by consumerbydesign

Haliburton makes it look to corporate. Conflict of interest with Cheney. Let Elf{french oil} have the contracts. The French are key diplomats here it`s not too late. Bush needs to talk more often and from his heart. We need wartime sacrifice in the homeland, energy habits maybe.

I totally agree with you there. You can also expand your idea to include Iraqi companies. While I was in Iraq, I thought about how to win the hearts of the people. My thought turned to injecting money directly into the Iraqi economy. Instead of awarding US companies with contracts, award the reconstruction contracts to local companies. I mean, Iraq is not this uncivilized country. I saw signs of unfinished construction all over the place while I was there. These contracts would put Iraqis to work which puts all kinds of money into the economy. That is much better than giving out aid on the form of handouts to the people.

We definitely need to change our energy habits. Or policies in the middle east would be much different if we were not dependent on the black gold.

Originally Posted by FlyingFrog

Be better by sending Arab troops into Iraq.
Something like 500,000 Arab troops.

It's a good idea, but the Arab League of Nations won't approve that. The ALN said that they would not recognize the Interim Iraqi Government because none of the Iraq leaders are elected into their positions. Someone in the media pointed out that none of the country leaders in the ALN are elected to their positions. That point alone shows the world the ALN's view on Iraq. The ALN can hardly agree on anything except an extreme hatred of the US and Israel.

More troops to police the streets once the authorities of Iraq under Saddam fell.

Originally Posted by the_13th_redneck

More troops to police the streets once the authorities of Iraq under Saddam fell.

If we hadn't decided to disband the Iraqi Army, we would have had thousands of trained Iraqis to restore the peace. Here is a piece that says it better than I can.

"The decision—decreed by the U.S.-led occupation authority's "Order No. 2," titled "The Dissolution of Entities"—is now widely seen as a turning point in the post-battlefield phase of the war. Removing a potential force for order from an inherently chaotic landscape, the decision allowed looters to flourish and worsened matters by unleashing thousands of ticked-off Iraqi ex-soldiers who no longer had paychecks but still had their guns. The ensuing riots stretched the already-sparse "coalition" forces still thinner. Finally, the elimination of the army destroyed all shreds of the Iraqi people's hopes that their sovereignty might be preserved. Gordon quotes one U.S. colonel as saying of the disbanding, "We changed from being a liberator to an occupier with that single decision."
SOURCE

I believe it was Paul Bremer who was the father of that stupid idea but approval came from higher.

I remember the problem with that was a political one.
Iraqis, being held by the same Iraqi army, was politically unacceptable, and could have been a huge stumbling block in winning hearts and minds.

What they *should* have done was sack all volunteer units or "special" units but keep the conscripts. I don't think it would have been hard to tell the public the conscripts were good guys who were now free from Saddam as well and now served to protect the Iraqis.